


The Bastion Falls

by Quillfiend



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Angst, Death, Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 04:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18653224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillfiend/pseuds/Quillfiend
Summary: Soraka counts the scars on her soul after Mordekaiser's defeat. The dread monarch was defeated, but at what cost?





	The Bastion Falls

When she stepped down from the heavens and embraced mortality, Soraka experienced the suffering of humans firsthand. She felt thirst and hunger, pain and solitude; she knew then what it was like to be shunned and distrusted, cheated and betrayed. Her faith in Runeterra never wavered, but it was tempered in the fires of war and steeled in the throes of famine; she'd seen horror and misery and depravity, but for - and perhaps because of - every murder and every sin her hope grew stronger. She'd reminded herself that it was always darkest before the dawn and swore to be its herald, carrying light where none other dared tread. She tended to the sick, helped the downtrodden and charged with the true-hearted to fight for justice and liberty; she knew that to be her purpose, and in fulfilling her destiny she found her strength and peace.

Yet it wasn't always easy.

There were times when she wept. She trembled and sobbed and prayed to the celestial divines, not for herself but for those who had been so hurt, so scarred that they had chosen the darkest of paths, souls so vile and despicable that there was no forgiveness for them, not even among the stars. When Soraka rode out with the warmatrons of the frozen Freljord against the worst tyrant Valoran had ever known, she knew that she would face unspeakable acts of cruelty, dreadful atrocities that would rid her of restful sleep for centuries to come. But she could not anticipate their scope, the monstrous grandeur with which Mordekaiser put his abhorrent crimes on display; every second fighting the dread tyrant was a livid nightmare. Soraka was made to walk roads paved in bones and lined by bloodied stakes, a body impaled on each; such was the fate of any and all who opposed Mordekaiser's reign of terror. She saw entire villagers razed to the ground, men killing each other not out of greed, but hunger, forests burned and spirits enslaved. When she and the just queens of the frozen north finally pushed the dread monarch all the way to his bloody bastion, Soraka thought that she was at last going to breathe a sigh of relief, but she was wrong. Mordekaiser's death meant victory, but it was a bitter one; none of his evil deeds were undone. Those he had slain were still dead, those maimed by his henchmen still cripples.

And the most heinous of his sins awaited Soraka inside his very home, in the catacombs beneath his wicked citadel. She was the first one to step down there, tired and bloodied but full of resolute hope that she could save many of his prisoners.

She was swiftly shown the error in her belief.

Soraka could mend flesh, and with time also minds, but the creatures she found beneath the Immortal Bastion were simply beyond saving. Many of them had been there for so long that they no longer remembered their humanity; torture and isolation had made them into something bestial, something savage and wretched. The best she could do was to put them out of their misery and keep walking the harrowing prison. The stench of the place choked her, brought tears to her eyes; there was barely any air down there, and every breath was heavy with the smell of blood, rust and human refuse. Maggots and roaches thrived in the corpses that piled at every corner; profane symbols of the dark occult littered the stone walls. Soraka could only guess what served as their ink.

There came a moment when she thought of setting the entire catacombs ablaze and never looking back. She felt shame at the idea and resolved to press on, if not for the prisoners then for herself; she could not let the abyss stare into her.

Soraka tried counting the cells she had visited, but after a certain point she simply gave up. There were too many, too much despair to be put in numbers. Her soul felt cold and numb by the time she'd reached the second level, somewhat roused only when she encountered a large, petricite door shutting off an entire block. Unlocking it from the outside was deceptively easy; a few levers pressed and a few cogwheels turned and the gate slowly creaked open. Soraka readied her silencing magic for whatever that could be found inside, but all of the cells were empty. All save for one.

She wasn't sure what she'd found at first. The creature huddling in the dark corner of one of the petricite rooms was certainly no human; Soraka assumed it to be an animal, perhaps a large cat. She brought her radiant staff closer to it and realized that she was looking at a yordle. He was frantically mumbling something, his eyes full of fear.

„He's dead,“ Soraka said in a soft tone, „Mordekaiser is dead. You're free.“

„Don't say it,“ the yordle stuttered, shaking wildly, „don't say his name. He can hear it.“

„He cannot hear anything anymore.“ The starchild ducked in front of the prisoner. „It's over. The northqueens slew him.“

He didn't believe her, and when she reached out to him, he recoiled from her hand. There was little left of his mind, yet Soraka could not bring herself to end the creature. She could kill humans, but not spirits. Her soul could not bear that weight.

Instead she wove a simple tranquilizing spell, breathing stardust into the yordle's matted fur. He had no strength nor the will to fight it, sinking into deep slumber. He stopped shaking then, drawing the first peaceful breath in centuries, and Soraka allowed herself a single tired smile. She took the creature into her arms afterwards, carrying it far from the prison and the gruesome remnants of the cursed king's reign.

 


End file.
